Guidance for Supervisors of Midwives

Evidence should be collated against the criteria of the standards and stored in box files or similar. This should be an ongoing process throughout the year leading up to the audit. It is important that the evidence presented is contemporary to that audit year. Following each audit this process of evidence gathering and collation should recommence.

The supervisory team will be notified of the date of the proposed audit visit and in the month preceding the visit they should undertake an assessment of the LSA standards. Using the response columns of the standards they should document their achievement or otherwise to each criterion and record the nature of the evidence in support of achievement. This evidence could, for example, take the form of minutes of meetings; membership and terms of reference of various committees; diary of time spent on supervisory activities; audit outcomes; reports.

Prepare a presentation to be made to the LSAMO and others on the audit visit day, of the current strategy for supervision to include highlights of achievements and an action plan based on the out come of the self/peer review of LSA standards.

Arrangements should be made with managers to release a cross section of midwives to meet with the audit team to elicit midwives’ views of supervision. The views of midwives will form part of the triangulation process.

On the day of the audit visit the boxed evidence and the completed assessment need to be available for the audit team to target sample. This will take the form of examination of evidence related to randomly selected criteria from each of the five standards. Discrepancies between the local assessment and the verification exercise will lead to additional criteria being validated.

The visit will conclude with a meeting between the supervisory and audit teams when verbal feedback will be provided by the LSAMO or designate. A written report will be sent to the contact supervisor within four weeks and the supervisory team should then revise their strategy and action plan for the following year thus completing the audit cycle.